It Is Better To Die For The Emperor
by Agent Hitokiri
Summary: On the fringe world of Halan something ancient stirs, but Colonel Kenth Grayden and the Vitorum 34th Regiment will do their duty no matter the cost. The fate of Halan, the Imperium, the very galaxy itself, may be decided by one man's faith and courage.


The death world of Halan was hardly remarkable when one viewed it from orbit from aboard a ship of the Imperium. Hidden deep in the Eastern Fringe of the galaxy only a few Imperial ships had ever even detected the world and even fewer had ever set down upon it since the days of the Old Ones. Halan was a small world with no sentient life, covered with untamed jungles and vast oceans as far as the eye could see, with only tiny frozen polar regions nearly lost in the sea of greens and blues. An attractive world to be sure, but not one the vast Imperium of Man would normally have set its sights upon. What had brought the Adeptus Mechanicus to Halan with an army of servitors, and ten thousand Imperial citizens to mine the vast mineral riches beneath the world, were not those self-same riches. What made Halan so special and warranted so expensive an expedition was that it was a treasure trove of ancient xenos ruins, and that the world was completely untouchable by the Warp. No astropathic communications, no psychic activity of any kind, could occur anywhere within one hundred and fifty miles of the planet's surface. Any ship attempting to enter the Immaterium too close to the world was destroyed as its warp engines overloaded, unable to vent their terrible energies to open a rift to the Warp. No amount of sensor scans or psyker probing could determine just how such an unremarkable world could boast such a potentially galaxy-altering anomaly. For whoever could discover and harness the source of the anomaly could forever tip the balance of power in the eternal battle between the forces of Order and the daemons of Chaos.

Another tremor seized the earth beneath his feet but Colonel Kenth Grayden hardly noticed them now and barely lost a half-step as Halan shuddered beneath him. The commanding officer of the Vitorum 34th Regiment, the Striking Talons, looked around and saw that not one of his men visibly faltered during the earthquake. Grayden had been conducting a surprise inspection of the outpost wall's defensive gun stations when the tremor hit, noting that the guardsmen on duty quickly locked their weapons in place to prevent any accidental firings.

The outpost had been established for nearly five years and never in all that time had Grayden felt so many earthquakes rocking the tiny planet. Now it seemed that at least once a day a quake would wrack the outpost, and indeed it seemed that they were not localized to the Adeptus Mechanicus outpost. The sub-orbital sensor drones detected new epicenters daily all across the face of Halan, and the colonel was certain that the tremors were getting stronger. Such a thing was never the sign of anything good.

"Colonel."

Grayden turned and saw his second in command, Captain Danur Teneth, jogging over to him. Normally within the outpost the Striking Talons carried only sidearms, save those on duty along the wall, so when Grayden saw that Teneth was carrying his slung hellgun he knew that something had happened.

"Captain, report," Grayden barked.

"Magos Sara has finally found something," Teneth replied, his muscular form barely constrained by the jungle-pattern camouflage fatigues. Easily the strongest of the 34th, Teneth's arms were nearly as large as the colonel's thighs.

"It only took him five years so I suppose we should be grateful that we might finally have a mission on this dirt ball. Just what did he find after all this time?"  
"He didn't say. He wants you to report to his sanctum immediately."

Grayden took one last brief look around to assure himself that everything was as it should be before descending into the outpost proper with Teneth at his heel without needing to be ordered.

Their destination was the shrine to the Omnissiah of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the single largest structure in the entire outpost, dwarfing even the mining and refinery buildings and the manufactorums.

"Captain, with me," Grayden ordered, knowing he did not need to do so but feeling comfort in the formality of command when dealing with someone as frustratingly pious as the magos. "I would have you there so that our two voices might help temper the religious zeal of our dear magos."  
"Yes, sir."

Though it was not to the same scale or ornate design of a shrine on a forge world or even a sub-sector capital world, the shrine to the Omnissiah on Halan was still an impressive sight. A deceptively simple design, the Obelisk as it was known, reached a kilometer into the sky and dominated all around it as though a single great finger of the Machine God was pointing back to Holy Mars itself. The four-sided structure had but one entrance and it was there that the two guardsmen made their way through the rest of the outpost hab complexes and manufactorums. Grayden found himself unconsciously shaking his head as he laid eyes upon the Obelisk, for he felt that such buildings were arrogant and prideful when the resources could be used to serve the Emperor in more meaningful ways, but it was best to keep such views from the zealous minions of the Machine God. If the magos were to learn of his feelings Grayden knew that he would go to bed one night and wake one of the lobotomized servitors the Cult Mechanicus valued so highly. That was a fate worse than death to any soldier.

None of the servitors or techpriests in the shrine offered to show the two soldiers the way to the magos' private sanctum at the peak of the great spire, but neither did they ask. Both had been there on a number of occasions and as was the case for so many of the Striking Talons, they remembered almost everything they saw or heard. Coupled with their nearly perfect sense of direction and they were indeed perfect warriors for such jungle planets as Halan.

The door to the sanctum was closed as expected as the Magos was reclusive to the extreme, but as they approached Grayden instinctively reached for his hellpistol as the door unexpectedly opened before they could announce themselves.

"Colonel, Captain, come in, come in," Magos Vin Sara bade them. "We finally found it, thank the Omnissiah."  
"Found what, magos?" Grayden asked, the door hissing shut behind him.

The magos moved to the center of the large pyramidal room and activated a holoprojector. A holographic image swam into being showing a mountain range and there was only one significant range anywhere on the planet.

"The source of the warp-dampening that shrouds this world," Sara informed them, suddenly seeming so alive for one who was surely well into his second century and could possible see a third with judicious juvenat treatments for his few remaining biological components. "After all these years, we have finally found it. Or rather I should say that is has revealed itself."

"If you could elaborate more, magos, and perhaps start at the beginning?"  
"Of course, of course. This last tremor must have unearthed something that has previously been too well shielded for even our most powerful scanners to detect it through whatever masking technology is at work on this world. Before the ground had ceased its movements we detected a faint energy signal coming from the north, somewhere beneath the Skytalon Mountains."

A red Imperial aquila appeared on the screen and pulsated to indicate the approximate location of the signal that the magos' staff had detected. It seemed to be geographically close, barely thirty miles north-north-east from the outpost though it was through dense jungle all the way to the foot of the mountains.

"Could it simply be one of our mining teams?" Teneth asked. "If they set up a camp there to base their recon from that could explain the energy signature."  
"I've already eliminated any other causes," the magos explained, some exasperation in his voice at the lack of enthusiasm in the two soldiers before him showing through. "The modulation of the signal wave pattern, as well as the frequency and power signature indicate something other than Imperial technology, and nothing alien that we have ever found before that I have any record of. This means that whatever this is dates back to the time of the Age of Strife or beyond, possibly many thousands of years beyond that." Regardless, we must investigate and claim this find for the God-Emperor and the Omnissiah. To that end I want you to select a team to leave immediately lest we chance anyone else stumbling upon it, or our location teams damage it even accidentally."

"I will leave at first light, magos," Grayden affirmed. "I will take a score of men and we will determine the nature of whatever this signal is and report in so that you may decide the next course of action."

"You will also take with you my principal adept, Dauskan Vinco, so that you may probe whatever miraculous device you find. Techpriest Vinco is most capable and extremely well-versed in xenotech and all manner of Imperial technology."  
"As you wish. I will muster the men at dawn at the northern gate. If your techpriest could bring with him a tracker capable of pinpointing the signal, something with an uplink to both the orbital and sub-orbital sensor drones, that would greatly help us narrow our search."

"It shall be done. God-Emperor guide you, colonel, and the Omnissiah watch over you."  
As they left the magos' chamber, the two guardsmen exchanged a look that spoke volumes even as they headed for the barracks to assembled their team. The look told the other that neither of them believed the magos had found anything worth risking Imperial lives over, but that they both knew they had no choice but to go.

Dawn came and even as the first rays crested the horizon the twenty-man strong force, along with their Mechanicus charge, left the north gate on foot and crossed the two hundred yard clearing before entering the jungle itself. There was no point in taking an armored vehicle for nothing on Halan would make it a hundred yards in the jungle with any stealth at all, even if it avoided getting hung up on tree stumps and drawing every predator in the area to them. Grayden had ordered his men to pack as light as possible for he wanted to reach the source of the signal in as little time as possible, so they were all equipped with hellguns and hellpistols, water and food for five days, small medical kits and spare power cells and a small selection of grenades. The hellguns and pistols had been hard to convince the magos to requisition from his Mechanicus brethren rather than going through regular Departmento Munitorum channels, but they were worth it. More powerful than a standard-issue lasgun, the hellguns were able to cut through jungle foliage in a fight and lose less of their destructive power. When you had an injala barreling down on you a hellgun was a Striking Talon's best friend.

There were no words exchanged as the guardsmen entered the jungle for each knew his duty. The colonel had given them their mission and that was all they needed.

"Pathfinder," Grayden said, drawing the attention of the best scout in the regiment, a man who was more ghost than mortal man. "Range ahead and do what you do best."  
Pathfinder nodded and was gone, Grayden knowing that it was likely that they would only hear their companion through their ear beads until they returned to the outpost.

Even though it was dawn the jungle was already humid but the Striking Talons were hardly inexperienced in such environments and they barely noticed the temperature or the biting insects.  
In so many ways Kenth Grayden missed his homeworld but when you could experience such deadly beauty even so far from home it made the distance seem somehow less heartrending.  
With his men spread out in a standard dispersal pattern, Grayden set his hellgun for full power and picked his way with well-practiced ease through the undergrowth. The amount of noise behind him told him that Techpriest Vinco was having significantly more difficulty. If it wasn't for his knowledge and the orders from the magos, Grayden would have been glad to leave him to the tender mercies of the jungle.

At least the device that Vinco had brought with him had been exactly what Grayden had wanted, narrowing the focus of the signal significantly and giving them a much more accurate bearing. Along with the signal triangulation uplink, the scanner Vinco held also had fairly detailed sub-surface sensor readings and from what Grayden could see, there was a definite opening in the side of the mountain that could easily lead to the source of the signal.

The first few miles passed uneventfully enough, punctuated only by the stumbling of the techpriest and his irritating prayers to the Omnissiah for deliverance from the jungle. The blistering heat only got worse until it must have been at least fifty degrees and nearly one hundred percent humidity, but still Grayden felt himself relishing the challenge ahead simply to once again prove his mastery over yet another world. In his long career with the Imperial Guard Grayden had fought on dozens of worlds but none had ever truly tested him to his limits. Perhaps Halan would finally give him the challenge that he and all the Striking Talons sought.

That moment of introspection, that instant of distraction and Grayden missed the faint rustling in the trees that was a sign of one of the most terrible predators on the entire planet stalking them. Thankfully Teneth was alert and swung his hellgun towards the sound, the others taking their cue from him and coming to a stop, weapons searching for any signs of the creature.

"Manripper," Teneth whispered, his voice barely reaching the colonel's ears despite the fact that he was barely a meter away.  
Letting the sounds of the jungle wash over him, Grayden felt his grip tighten on the grip of his weapon as he realized that there was not just one but rather at least three of the vicious beasts.

"Page, Darfour, Jolar, protect the techpriest," Grayden ordered, moving away from the cowering Mechanicus minion so that he could engage the enemy more freely. "Do not fail me."  
The three corporals did not need to respond and Grayden did not need any. When he told his men to do something it got done, no questions asked. The three bodyguards for Vinco would throw themselves in the path of any attack, dying to shield their charge without hesitation.  
The squad was dispersed perfectly when the manrippers finally came for them. The piercing manic shrieks echoed through the jungle as the beasts swung through the trees and launched themselves into the midst of the guardsmen. The manrippers were vaguely simian but there the similarities ended, for they possessed mouths of fangs and had great curving scything hooks for hands. Standing barely a meter tall, they were not physically imposing but they tended to attack in packs and were vicious in a way few creatures Grayden had ever encountered could match.

They proved that once again as they hurtled from the trees high overhead and bore Trooper Lahan down, leaving him dead in a spray of blood even as they bounded on, keening as the dead trooper's blood ran down their faces. Combined hellgun fire caught one manripper in the chest and blasted it apart, raining smoldering chunks of inhuman meat and gore across the loamy soil and several other troopers. Sergeant Deras threw up his weapon to block the overhead swipe of one of the foul creatures, but its lower legs still slashed his legs and stomach deeply, driving the man onto his back where the manripper would surely tear him limb from limb. Sighting quickly, Grayden fired and the laser blast took the back of the simian head off, leaving the limp body to collapse upon the badly wounded soldier. The last manripper had claimed another life, a trooper lay beneath it as the creature tore his throat out and feasted, before Teneth drove his warknife through its spine.  
The entire engagement had lasted five or six seconds but already two of their number were dead and another injured, perhaps to the point where he may not be able to continue.

"Captain Teneth, set up a defensive perimeter," Grayden ordered, kneeling next to Deras and checking his wounds as the man groaned in agony. "I will dress Deras' wounds."  
"And the dead, sir?" Teneth asked.  
"Strip them and perform the rights. We have no time to bury them and to do so in this place would be a waste of time."  
"Yes, sir."  
Even as Grayden began to disinfect and bandage Deras' wounds the ground seized beneath him, sending him tumbling over backwards and sending most of his men to their knees. The quake brought down several rotten trees and insects rained down from above until at last the tremors stopped and all was quiet once again.  
"The quakes are getting worse," Lieutenant Adi Borjas noted, standing watch over the captain as he saw to the needs of their fallen comrade. "They've been getting worse for months now."  
"Yes, lieutenant," Grayden replied, finally sealing the last of Deras' wounds and injecting him with a combat cocktail to get him back on his feet. "On your feet soldier. The Emperor still has a mission for us."

"Yes, sir," Deras replied, taking the hand up and retrieving his rifle. "Just give me a moment to catch my breath."  
"We have only a moment so catch it fast."  
The rest of the Talons stripped their fallen of their equipment and supplies for the corpses had little need for such things. Some might have thought them callous, but no death worlder would say so. They knew that what the dead no longer needed could save the lives of their comrades. The colonel took a second hellpistol and left the rest for his men, before leading them onwards towards their goal.

"Techpriest, how far to the objective?" Grayden asked, all senses alert for any further manripper ambushes.  
"The Omnissiah willing we should be able to cover the remaining twenty two point four miles in eighteen hours if our current speed is any indication," Vinco replied, not even needing to consult his scanner.  
"Not good enough. Alright men, you heard the techpriest. I want us there in twelve hours so that means we need to step it up. We're not in enemy territory and if we stay alert we should not find ourselves surprised again by any of the local predators. Stay sharp and shoot anything that moves."  
True to his word the colonel drove his men hard through the jungle, several times hearing the approach of something deep in the underbrush but never did anything appear. His men seemed to be feeling the same, as though they were being watched, but they maintained fire discipline like the professionals they were. Barely four hours from their objective Grayden felt the hidden eyes upon him again but this time there was a difference feeling to it, as though whoever or whatever had been stalking them for so long had finally decided to attack.  
"Be alert," he commed to his squad, keeping his voice low so as to not spook whatever was out there. "I believe our friends are preparing to attack. Respond accordingly."  
Affirmatives from the squad leaders came through and so Grayden focused himself on catching a glimpse of the stalkers and all too soon regretted doing just that.

With blood-chilling roars a pair of huge injalas tore through the jungle and came for them, double-hinged jaws overflowing with jagged fangs. An unholy hybrid of reptile and feline, the injala was normally three hundred pounds of fury with seven claws on each paw, thick scales that covered its entire body, and a paralytic spine in its tail that could stop a man in his tracks in seconds. The two coming at them now however were nothing like any injala that Grayden had ever seen. They were almost twice as large as any injala ever recorded and they were moving with a speed that would surpass a Sentinel at full throttle.

Without waiting for an order the Striking Talons opened fire, a fierce volley of laser blasts raking the charging beasts but doing little to slow their reckless approach. Again they fired and again the armored scales absorbed the punishment, leaving two very angry animals coming at them.

"Scatter!" Grayden shouted, hellgun screaming on automatic as he sprinted to his right for a large tree.

A frag grenade flew past him and landed next to the rearmost injala before detonating and sending molten shrapnel ripping through everything around it, drawing a cry of pain from its target but still not slowing it.

A trooper went down beneath the massive form of the lead injala, screaming as the beast tore him to shreds, suddenly silenced as it tore out his throat.  
The spent power cell hit the soil even as the colonel slapped in a fully charged one, reciting a litany to the Emperor, praying for His guidance and His benevolence. Grayden came out from cover, hellgun dispensing the Emperor's righteous wrath as he charged straight for the nearest injala, ignoring the calls of Captain Teneth to stop his suicidal actions. The huge creature rounded on him and Grayden did not hesitate, keeping his weapon perfectly straight, aim unwavering as it screamed over and over again, blades of light stabbing into its mutated face. It was that face that finally told Grayden just what was happening on Halan, but that would have no bearing on his duty this day.

The hellgun fell silent as the power cell was drained, but hellpistol suddenly in hand as though the Emperor Himself had willed it, Grayden continued to fire. A lucky or divine shot exploded the injala's left eye and it roared in agony as it lunged for him, impossibly powerful legs propelling it forward in a deadly arc, its weight enough to simply crush the man attacking it. Finger still rhythmically squeezing the hellpistol's trigger, Grayden used his left hand to pull a frag grenade from his belt and armed it, raising the explosive high before releasing it and diving clear. The injala had no chance whatsoever, so great was its momentum and so high was its blood lust that it did not realize its doom was upon it. Its mouth still wide and fangs glistening as it sought to taste flesh again, the beast inadvertently devoured the frag grenade as it sailed past Grayden's flying form, the weapon lodging in its throat even as the fuse finished and a mighty explosion vaporized its head and neck. The decapitated body landed with the force of a drop pod impact and twitched for a few moments before lying still, but the colonel paid it no more attention. Reloading his weapon Grayden sought the second injala which was being harried by his men, several wounded and at least three lying dead, their blood soaking into the earth, their souls already wending their way to the Emperor's side.

A black rage settled upon Grayden, his conscious mind seeming to recede so that only his battle-heightened senses and his Emperor-given duty to avenge his men dictated his actions. Grayden holstered his weapon and drew his warknife before crying out to the Emperor for His divine protection and racing for the last foe.

The injala may have heard him coming, it may have smelled him, it may even have simply been lucky, if that word would be applied to a warp-mutated beast, but as it turned its head to see what had made the terrible sound that assailed its ears, a blade of Imperial steel pierced its right eye and drove deep into its brain.

A twist was all the effort Grayden made before drawing his hellpistols and emptying them into the face of the injala at point blank range, keeping pace with the dying creature as it mewed and staggered about before finally collapsing, its last breath hissing out in a fetid steam as it finally expired. It took another fifteen seconds before Grayden's weapons ran dry but before they did he had rendered the head of the monster that had killed his comrades, his brothers, to a barely recognizable mess of steaming offal.

"Sir?" Teneth said, coming close to his commanding officer but not incautiously. "Are you alright?"

"Tend to the men, captain," Grayden ordered, reloading his pistols before looking about for his hellgun. "We must get moving quickly for I believe we have only seen the beginnings of the insanity taking place on this planet."  
As if to underscore his words another great tremor seized the earth beneath them.

Leaving his men to their duty, Grayden retrieved his rifle and examined the first headless injala. Up close and without having to fear its awesome teeth and claws, it was clear that the animal starting to rot at his feet was warped and from the scent of corruption it was a massive exposure to the Immaterium that was responsible. All the Striking Talons had fought Chaos and its minions on one battlefield or another, but Grayden had encountered them more often and many of the more subtle ways that Chaos can infect and corrupt the material universe. The injala was obviously tainted, from its grossly enlarged size, to its ultra-dense hide, to the unnatural color of the fluids congealing around it. But how could it have been exposed to the Warp in so terrible a manner?

"Colonel, we have lost four of the men, including Deras," Borjas informed him, coming up behind the colonel and startling him from his thoughts. "Three others have been injured."  
Grayden turned and saw that Borjas had her fatigues cut open on her left side and her ribs were covered in synthflesh.

"How badly are you injured?" he asked.

"I can still fight. Captain Teneth has organized the rest of the men and we can move out whenever you're ready."

"Good. We leave at once. There is something terribly wrong on this planet and we must find out what it is."

As the colonel departed to lead them towards their goal, Borjas looked down at the corrupted beast and found herself involuntarily shuddering. Just what was happening on Halan?

The sun had long set and indeed was threatening to rise once more when they at last reached the foothills of the Skytalon Mountains, their bearing sure and Techprist Vinco assuring them that the signal was getting ever stronger.

"It lies not more than a mile ahead," Vinco repeated, working his scanner to locate the source of the signal. "It is also below us, somewhere beneath the mountains but it is only several hundred meters down and the orbital drones have managed to compile a three-dimensional image of the area."  
Grayden watched as the adept explained the image on the scanner which showed an entrance a few hundred meters ahead as the jungle ended and the mountains rose up, as well as the tunnels that obviously led down to whatever was generating the signal.

"Captain Teneth, your squad will bring up the rear. Lieutenant Borjas, take point," Grayden ordered. "Keep your faith in the Emperor strong and we will see our mission done."

As they pushed out of the jungle that had claimed a third of their brothers, the remains of the Vitorum 34th saw the entrance that led beneath the mountain and it gave them all pause.  
They had all expected a crack in the rock face, perhaps some ancient path chiseled from the stone that they would squeeze through, not the vast columned archway that seemed to have been formed of the mountain itself and yet seemed completely artificial. Borjas reached it first and ran her hand over it and the rock around it, unable to feel any discernable difference but certain that there was more to it than she was seeing.

The archway was easily large enough to drive a battletank through, as was the corridor beyond, so the thirteen troopers had little difficulty making their way inside.

They moved slowly, each alert for traps or any hidden defenses but as they started to descend into the mountain and around the first switchback, they all started to feel the oppressiveness of the air despite the fact that it was not stale with age. There was something, unholy, in the air and it wasn't until another earthquake sent them tumbling into each other and the tunnel walls that their answer was revealed. In several places the tunnel walls started to warp and fluctuate, rippling almost as though a rock had been dropped in a pond but the walls were all solid rock and such a thing was impossible. What was even more impossible were the creatures that seemed to be pushing and clawing their way through the walls from somewhere, their red eyes and unnatural bodies marking what they were almost as readily as the feeling of terror and loathing they elicited. Grayden recognized them immediately for he had fought them on other planets where the Warp had been accessed by the foes of the Imperium and the primal daemons had managed to penetrate the dimensional barriers to feast on fresh souls once again.

Warp beasts.

They were fearsome creatures, fast and deadly like few mortal predators for they were not mortal. Though they could be destroyed, their essences would simply return to the Warp, banished beyond the material realm until they could recover their strength and return to kill and slaughter again.

Already the way back to the surface was cut off as warp beasts started to emerge from the walls, floor and ceiling, so there was one chance to escape and await reinforcements and rescue.  
"Down!" Grayden ordered. "We will reach the source of the signal and barricade ourselves there. Draw them to us in a killing ground until we can get word to the outpost. Move it!"

The Striking Talons beat an orderly retreat, four of them laying down suppressing fire as the rest fell back fifty meters, another four then covering the first as they ran to regroup. Their leap-frogging tactics kept the beasts at bay, seeing most dead even as they tried to pull themselves from the weak Warp rifts that seemed to be appearing everywhere.

"Here, there's a door up ahead!" the techpriest shouted. "The signal is coming from inside."  
"Get in there and see if there is anyway to seal it behind us," Grayden snapped, hellgun trained on another emerging head, a quick burst exploding it across the floor. "Do not seal the door until I tell you."  
Vinco moved as quickly as the colonel had ever seen one of the Mechanicum move before, passing through the open doorway and into the room beyond. Almost immediately a pure white light appeared and lit the room, flooding out into the corridor that descended towards it.

"By the Omnissiah," came through the vox link. "Colonel, this is surely the will of the Machine God that we have survived to find this miraculous device."  
"I don't care how miraculous it is!" Grayden shouted, motioning his men to continue their retreat. "Find some way to seal that room once we get inside or all our souls will be lost to the Warp!"

The techpriest's reply was lost as the ground started to shake once more and this time it did not relent, indeed it seemed to be getting progressively worse as though some great tectonic shift had occurred.

Turning Grayden saw that he was less than a hundred meters from the doorway of light, unable to see beyond it but at that moment he did not care, for what lay beyond could not possibly be worse than the warp beasts now freely pouring from rifts and overwhelming his small force. Already three others including Borjas were dead, mauled beyond identification, and the rest of the squad were starting to panic and no longer coordinating their weapons fire to overwhelm the monsters culling their ranks.

"Break and retreat," the colonel ordered. "All of you that have grenades use them to cover our retreat."

Loosing a last volley Grayden turned and made for the doorway, lancing lasfire into any rifts that tried to open along the way. The dull crumps of frag grenade detonations behind him gave him hope that some of them would escape the warp filth that were nearly deafening in their lustful cries as they devoured the guardsmen.

There were footsteps right behind him and Grayden spared a look to see that Captain Teneth and four other troopers were hot on his heels, the five of them seemingly the only survivors now.

"Colonel, we have no more grenades and those creatures are right behind us!" Teneth shouted, but before Grayden could reply a huge form dropped from the ceiling and crushed the soldier beneath its terrible weight.

The warp beast's tail struck Grayden and propelled him sliding through the open doorway, which immediately started to close even as he watched the last of his men being torn limb from limb.

"No!" he cried, but then the doorway had vanished and all that could be heard was the rumbling of the planet as it seemed poised to shake itself apart. "Damn you techpriest, I told you not to close the door until I gave you the order!"

Turning to confront the Adeptus Mechanicum peon for disobeying his orders, Grayden stopped in mid-stride as he took in the vast chamber he found himself in. The light had kept it hidden from a distance but once through it a room of unimaginable wonders was revealed, every surface was polished silver that impossibly did not seem to reflect the white light, light that did not appear to emanate from anything. It merely was and that was all there was to it.

"By the Golden Throne," Grayden breathed, his men forgotten as the enormity of what he saw sunk in and the reality of his men's deaths took hold. "Techpriest, what is all this?"  
Vinco stood twenty meters away at a great curved control console of obvious xeno's manufacture, his mechadendrites interfaced with the console while beyond it, running from the top of the great spherical room down into the very bowels of the world itself, was the device it controlled.

The device was immense, fully a hundred meters across and it was impossible to tell just how deep into Halan it extended. The chamber alone was two hundred meters in diameter, and everything in it was constructed of the same silvered alloy.

"It is the greatest discovery in the history of the Imperium," Vinco babbled, hololithic screens appearing and disappearing before him as he tried to understand the ancient workings of the chamber. "A piece of archeotech from a race that has only been speculated to exist and pre-dates the eldar, the orks, every race the Imperium has ever encountered including the necron."  
"But what is it?" Grayden demanded, turning as a terrible impact rung like a bell throughout the chamber. "Is this relic what is causing all the earthquakes and drawing the warp beasts to this place?"  
"Yes, but that was not its function. I…I am finding it hard to retain myself in the face of the power of this technology. The computer interface is more advanced than anything I have before encountered, and the artificial intelligence here is attempting to communicate with me many millions of years of information in only moments. It does not seem to understand, or perhaps knows that its end nears and does not care, that I cannot understand or comprehend most of what it is trying to tell me."

"What was its function? Why has it diverted from its reason for existing so suddenly?"  
"There was nothing sudden about it, colonel," the techpriest laughed, a hollow sound from his partly-mechanical larynx. "It has been failing for many millennia, though it has only been in recent years that this entropy has escalated. Once, this device was a warp dampener of incredible power, shielding this world from the Warp and making it impossible for any warp-based technology or life to exist here. Halan is described as a shield world, a refuge of this race when they were threatened by a Warp plague of apocalyptic proportions. They stayed here until the danger was past and then moved on, but left the device functioning should they ever need it again. Only now, as it degrades further and further, it no longer blocks the Warp but is now pulling it into our realm, and a vast amount of Warp energy has been building up at the core of the device, destabilizing it further as it leaks out into the planet. That is what has been causing the earthquakes and that is what has allowed the warp beasts to take form here."

The constant quake was now so terrible that Grayden was finding it hard to remain upright, but his duty was clear now. The device must be destroyed before it could create another vast Warp rift, one so large that like the Eye of Terror or the Maelstrom it might never close again.

"Techpriest, transmit all the data you can to the astropathica station for immediate transmission to the Imperium," the colonel ordered. "There may be a chance that your ilk in the Mechanicum can engineer this device for the good of the Imperium."  
"I will do what I can."  
The warp beasts were still battering the door but the ancient material seemed to be holding, though Grayden knew that could change at any moment.

"I have initiated an uplink," Vinco droned, the strain of trying to interact with the superior intelligence of the alien device clearly taking its toll. "Transmitting data package…package received and orders acknowledged."  
"Now all we can do is put our faith in the God-Emperor and ensure that this world is not turned against His divine light. Can you overload whatever is powering this place?"  
"If the Omnissiah wills it."  
A rending shriek and a huge clawed paw punched through the door, the material finally giving way to the sheer power of the warp beasts assailing it.

"God-Emperor damn you if you don't hurry up!" Grayden shouted, hellgun sending a hail of lasfire through the narrow rent in the door and drawing a howl from one of the unholy creatures beyond.  
"I…overload…Omnissiah forgive me."  
With that last strangled sentence Techpriest Dauskan Vinco crumpled and died, his mind unable to cope with the sheer power contained within the ancient device and giving out at last.

"God-Emperor watch over you," Grayden intoned, now alone as the minions of the Warp began to force their way into the chamber. "Perhaps he will watch over me as well."  
Readying his hellgun, Colonel Kenth Grayden of the Vitorum 34th Striking Talons prepared to meet his end with as much honor and dignity as he could muster so that he did not dishonor generations of his family.

The door was now being peeled inwards as the warp beasts forced their way in, only to be met by a withering barrage of lasfire that plugged the breech with vile corpses and bought the colonel a few moments to prepare for the inevitable. He reloaded the hellgun with his last fully-charged power cell before slinging the rifle and pulling out his last two frag grenades. Grayden thought about how to best use the grenades and simply opted to lob them into the first mass of the enemy that came for him. He did not have to wait long for the door split in half and the warp beasts poured through, slavering for the soul they craved. With a quick motion Grayden sent the grenades soaring over the heads of the leading creatures even as he unslung his rifle and opened fire. He dropped the first daemon before the grenades exploded, shrapnel pulping six more but there were dozens pressing their way through the gap and they cared not if they died for they knew they would be reborn again.

Behind him Grayden could hear the device whining and shuddering, nearly overwhelming the earthquake that continued to rock the chamber as Halan was struggling to contain the terrible energies building up at its core.  
Not much longer, he thought as the hellgun shrieked its anger at the foes charging mindlessly to their doom.

With one last flurry of light and heat the hellgun failed and the colonel let it fall, drawing and throwing his warknife in a single motion, catching a leaping warp beast between its eyes and letting it fall at his feet.

A mighty explosion rocked the chamber but Grayden paid it no heed, already with his hellpistols in hand as he continued to mete out the God-Emperor's divine justice to the unclean. Each shot was unerring but there were simply too many and too little time.  
"God-Emperor, hear my words, protect my men and draw them to your side," Grayden prayed, another explosion shattering the air as the device started to overload. "In your name I smite the foe, and your name is the last upon my lips. Ave Imperator!"  
With that last declaration the colonel's hellpistols expired and the warp beast's came for him. Refusing to close his eyes, Kenth Grayden smiled as the device erupted with cleansing fire and felt its heat as the blast wave scoured the chamber, the entire mountain, clean. The colonel kept his promise, not uttering a sound as he was vaporized.

Halan shuddered and bucked as the device reached critical mass and detonated, the ancient power source shattering the world in a moment and releasing the gathered Warp energies in a titanic wave. A rift was torn between the two realms and into it was drawn all that remained of a once verdant world, before being sealed once more by the galaxy itself. The colonel's desperate gamble had worked, the breach not having had time to reach self-sustaining proportions, and yet none would ever know of his daring sacrifice. Just as he had known all along. Truly, that was what made someone a hero; to sacrifice everything not for glory or reward, but for duty and honor, and faith that He would know your name.

"One of our shield worlds has fallen."  
"Was it our old enemy?"  
"No. It appears that time itself intervened."  
"It is unfortunate but we have many more shield worlds that we can turn to."  
"I will notify our great ally so that he may take action to prevent the creation of another rift between the two realities."  
"Yes. Nothing must impede him for without him, the Slann will not rise once more"  
"We shall rise, and with him at our side, the old enemy shall fall."

"Ave Imperator."


End file.
